After what seems like forever waiting to find one, we went and picked up our new house cow today. She is purebred Jersey, will be four years old in October and has a five month old steer calf at foot – he has tentatively been named “Bangers” as in ‘bangers and mash’ to go with the food name theme for the boys, but she dosn’t have a name yet. I want a name that is sweet and gentle, so something long the lines of Rosie, Annie, Abbey, Bonnie, Violet, Blossom or similar.
She has lost some condition since we first saw her ten days ago – I can see her ribs 🙁 (possibly because of her having the squirts from the huge quantity of green grass that has sprung up where she was after the opening rains), so I will be pumping the hay into her to get her back to a bit better condition asap, especially as she may be in calf – she was running with a Murray Grey bull and would be due to calf in September, so I will do a blood draw and have her preg tested at the end of next month so I can wean bangers and dry her off before she freshens.
I’ve got him seperated in the yard tonight and plan to attempt milking her for the first time in the morning. I am fully expecting a rodeo for the first month or two until she settles down and learns to trust me, but I figure nothing can be as bad as hand milking Charlotte aka devil-cow!
It was nearly dark by the time I got them seperated for the night and fed so the photos from my old camera are not the best – I will get better ones from my good camera tomorrow.
Tags: calf, hand milking, house cow, jersey